


A Timely Rescue

by SC_Sinclaire



Series: Fairy Tails: Because Dragons are Good and Gender Roles Suck! [2]
Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Damsels in Distress, Epic Rescue, Freedom, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, LGBTQ Female Character of Color, LGBTQ Themes, Other, Period-Typical Sexism, but not really, controlling kings, dragon fic, elitist attitudes, fragile male ego, gender-neutral dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:27:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23207713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SC_Sinclaire/pseuds/SC_Sinclaire
Summary: A pure-hearted princess trapped in a gilded cage and resigned to the fate of a loveless and potentially abusive marriage. A shape-shifting dragon with a drive to save pure souls surrounded by darkness. Can a rescue be successfully staged?
Series: Fairy Tails: Because Dragons are Good and Gender Roles Suck! [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1668454
Kudos: 1





	A Timely Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> Part two of my series of fairy-style stories in which I flip, shred or throw out entirely the script for classic fairy-tale tropes. Keep an eye out for more as I write about heroic dragons, evil knights, good step-mothers, and witches that aren't so bad.

In her tower chamber overlooking the entire castle town was a princess whose beauty was known throughout the land. She sat in her gilded cage. Her handmaid brushing her long dark hair while the princess examined her reflection in the jewel encrusted mirror dominating her vanity. Her gaze glanced over her skin, the color of the warm cocoa her father was so fond of, kept flawless by the strict medicinal regiment her father had her on. She spent more time looking into her own eyes idly wondering when the fiery spark that used be housed in her in strikingly green eyes died out.

Her handmaid, Mariana, chattered away, sharing rumors and gossip she’s heard around the castle when royal ears were nowhere to be found. She was too busy preparing the princess for a banquet that would formally introduce her to the men that intend to have her hand in marriage to notice the flat nearly dead look on the princess’s face.

The princess was not keen on attending the banquet for rumor held that none of her suitors in attendance were known for their kindness or compassion. There was of course the issue of them being _men_ in the first place, but none other than Mariana knew of the princess’s preferences in romantic partners. The popular explanation for her unmarried status was that she was simply too headstrong and particular to have chosen a suitable for herself.

The princess gave a single heavy sigh as she stood slowly so as to prevent her elaborate gown from bunching and wrinkling in unflattering places. With one last despairing look in the mirror she descended the spiral stone staircase from her bedchambers to the hall where Sir Percival, one of her father’s elite knights, waited to be her escort into the banquet hall.

She did not care for any of her father’s knights. Each of them held themselves with an arrogance she found distasteful and many lacked any kind of desire to hold an intelligent conversation. Sir Percival was among the more tolerable, being a naturally soft spoken and polite man, which simply meant she offered a polite if brief greeting whenever they crossed paths. As such she was grateful for his steady unassuming presence as she made her way into what she was sure to be the last night of what little freedom she still had.

Her entrance was as grand and over dramatic as it was unnecessary. The orchestra struck up a regal tune in time with her stride the moment she set foot in the hall, and did not cease until she had arrived at her father’s side.

With a flourish he presented the princess to the hall filled with nobles and royalty from other kingdoms. She knew almost all of them to one degree or another, but among the usual noses turned up in disdain, and leering lustful gazes was a face she had never seen before.

They seemed to effectively blend into the crowd the only thing causing them to stand out to the abnormally perceptive princess was the way the stranger seemed to flow through the crowd like a drop of water slides down her window.

Her father only cast her a stern glance and a subtle head shake when she asked after the stranger, so she settled for watching them discreetly while noble’s sons and a few princes introduced themselves to her father one by one. The stranger had yet to make themselves apart of the procession of potential suitors they did gradually grow closer to the raised dais where the princess and her father stood.

Suitor after suitor stood in front of the two, her father visibly pleased by the turn out. The princess however, could only feel dread. She knew the reputation of each of the men, and while a few were truly honorable men, they were either too low a station, or of little to no renown and by that virtue unsuitable for her hand and by extension the crown.

Just as the princess was reaching the end of her tolerance for being treated like a choice piece of land, the hall doors burst open, the wood creaking alarmingly as they slammed against the stone walls. In sauntered the sorriest excuse for a human the princess had ever had the displeasure of meeting.

He’d have been handsome if his chiseled features weren’t always turned up in an arrogant sneer. Unfortunately character counted for nothing when one was nearly as wealthy as the royal family. He was the sole surviving heir to a trade empire that had stood for nearly as long as the kingdom itself. His older brothers were all killed at one point or another other the last few years under mysterious circumstances. The princess was of the mind that he was in some way responsible for his brothers’ deaths, but there was no proof and to insinuate such a thing would bring far more trouble that it solved.

As displeased, if unsurprised, to see him as the princess was, her father was static. She’d have said outright giddy fi such a notion wouldn’t have earned her a verbal reprimand. The princess winced as her father’s booming voice offered a greeting and expression of gratitude to the detestable man. A quick hard look promising harsh punishment from her father had the princess gritting out a greeting through a tense, fake smile and clenched teeth.

She very carefully schooled her expression into one of polite neutrality as the man approached the royals offering a bow that was barely deep enough to avoid obvious insult. For his part her father gave the man an amused smile and embraced arms like one would a brother.

The man looked at the princess, a lecherous smile making his face even less appealing than usual. Etiquette dictated that she should offer a hand for a potential suitor to kiss, never had she despised such accustom as much as she did at that moment. His grip was bruising and his lips lingered on her knuckles longer than was usually considered polite.

Much to the man’s irritation and the princess’s amusement the lord was not the last to officially offer his hand in marriage. The stranger that had caught her attention earlier stepped up to introduce themselves. They were tall with delicate, feminine features that made the princess wonder if they were truly male as they claimed. Her thoughts about how incredible and amusing it would be is the stranger was a woman in disguise was interrupted by the deepest most elegant bow the princess had ever seen. The stranger bent at the waist, their back straight and parallel to the floor before rising with a fluidity that rivaled the kingdoms greatest dancers.

She studied the stranger’s face finding a sharp jawline and delicate chin. Lips that, much to the princess’s surprise, she found strangely enticing. It was the strangers eyes that truly held her attention with their unusual deep violet color that glinted with mirth and an intelligence she had not expected to see outside of her aged tutors. She had to mentally shake herself out of the stupor that had fallen over her with the stranger’s presence when they turned their attention to her.

She blinked in quiet surprise as even their voice failed to give away the stranger gender. It was too high to be a men’s tenor, but too low for a woman’s alto. There was a slight burr to their accent, with the occasional r rolled smoothly. The princess fancied it sounded like velvet running through her fingers. Soft and smooth but promised discomfort if crossed wrongly.

The princess found herself enchanted by the stranger, despite all effort to remain as detached from the procession as possible. Her father however was not impressed. He did not know who this stranger was, and his only display of wealth was in the quality of the simple, if well fitted outfit the stranger wore.

They were dismissed as quickly as etiquette would allow with a barely polite nod forcing the stranger to leave the royals’ presence sooner than the princess would have liked. However, they were not dismissed so quickly that the princess was not able to glean a name and title, Sir D’Igren of the shifting isles. Their claim of birthplace alone was enough to cause a stir among the gathered guests. For the shifting isles were notorious for being impossible to navigate as they lived up to their name, shifting and moving around each other with no discernible pattern

Sir D’Igren’s small half smile suggested amusement at the stir such a claim caused. Unfortunately for the princess who had finally found someone, other than a small handful of noble’s daughters, that piqued her interest Sir D’Igren’s antics only served to make her father dislike the mysterious knight even more. With a slight scowl on his face the king called for the feast to officially begin.

The detestable lord from earlier was given the highly coveted seat next to the king and across from the princess while Sir D’Igren was regulated to the end of the room length table, and subsequently as far from the princess as possible.

The princess bit back a bitter sigh as the man women on their arms were given plate laden with juicy meats and bread fresh from the stone ovens. Her own plate contained mostly vegetables and a few small pieces of meat and barely a mouth’s full worth of bread. Enough to remind her of her hearty appetite and not much more. Her measly unsatisfying meal was curtesy of her father’s orders that she maintain a certain figure even at the cost of frequent hunger pangs. Were it not for Mariana’s efforts in bringing the princess extra scraps scrounged from the kitchen she would probably be on the verge of malnutrition.

The princess was largely ignored as her father negotiated with the trade lord, but Sir D’Igren had, by some miracle, managed to charm others into trading seats until the knight was close enough for the princess to make direct eye contact. She found herself getting so lost in their violet eyes that Sir D’Igren became the only person she could see.

A smirk rose upon the handsome knight’s face, but their eyes held a curiously large amount of concern for the princess as her father bartered a price as though his own daughter was nothing more than a trade item. The princess was thrown by that concern. For none but her etiquette tutor and her handmaid had ever expressed anything even remotely similar.

The feast carried on for what seemed like an eternity. Only the lords who still believed they had a chance at winning over the king’s favor remained sober. The rest became increasingly intoxicated until the lower half of the table more closely resembled a peasant’s festival than a royal function.

The princess, still stuck at her seat at the table, spent more time with her eyes in the back of her head than watching the idiotic antics of the drunken knights and nobles while her father and the lord continued to iron out various details involving potential engagement and marriage.

To the princess’s relief her father ordered the tables moved and the orchestra began playing, officially opening the evening to dancing, or what passed for dancing when one was too inebriated to coordinate one’s feet properly. She saw the opportunity for what it was, a chance to finally leave her father’s side and gain a modicum of freedom. A chance she would not pass up.

She danced on her own always refusing the hands of men that asked her to dance, until she found herself amidst an unexpected, but expertly executed twirl that caused her to be face to face with Sir D’Igren. She was then lead in graceful waltz that seemed to cause the room to stop. They never said a word to each other, but they didn’t need to. Delight danced in the knight’s eyes and the relief in hers was plain to see for anyone that cared enough to look.

As the dance ended Sir D’Igren leaned in close to the princess and whispered into her ear a strange word from a language she had never heard before. With a small nod as though to offer some form of encouragement the knight made his retreat narrowly avoiding the twin scowls on her father and the lord’s face.

The king called for a pause in the festivities, every eye and ear turning to him in tense anticipation.

“I have chosen the suitor best fir for my daughter.” His voice boomed across the hall while the lord stood next to him a wolfish grin taking up most of his face.

_More like most profitable match. He cares nothing for my happiness or the kingdoms_ _well-being_. The though arose unbidden, but she could not deny its truth.

“Lord Nathair has earned my respect and the right to marry my daughter. As such, upon completion of their marriage ceremony Lord Nathair will also become heir to my throne.

The Princess’s defeated sigh was drowned out by the cheers and applause of the gathered men and women. Fury burned in the princess’s heart, but a profound sense of powerlessness washed over her. She had learned long ago that to fight against her father’s orders and the kingdom’s societal norms concerning the treatment of women only invited trouble. The kind of trouble that led to meal-less nights and weeks locked away.

Regardless she held her head high refusing to give up the only thing no one, not even her father, could take way. Her pride. With a herculean effort she held back the tears that threatened to shatter her composure and ignored the roaring in her heart.

At her father’s summons she stood in front of everyone as Lord Nathair stood at her side. Whatever perfume has used was cloying and nauseating as he stood close enough to hide the hand that groped her ass with bruising fingers. Her father remained willfully oblivious, and the lord acted as though nothing was amiss, but the princess was less adept at hiding her displeasure at the Lord’s violation. Despite her mounting anger she managed a thin smile, easily written off as an expression of exhaustion.

`To her surprise Sir D’Igren’s face which had been open and friendly the whole night became dark and stormy at the sight of Lord Nathair pressing against her side possessively. She gave the knight a nearly imperceptible shake of her head. While the knights concern was refreshing and heartwarming, and she was grateful for it, she did not wish to see the kind of harm her father and new fiancé would visit upon the knight.

The festivities continued from there, but the princess had all she could take for the night. Under the pretense of exhaustion and the need to obtain her beauty sleep she retreated bedchambers. She silently cursed the paranoia that caused her father to put her in one of the tallest towers and as far from potential harm as humanly as possible.

She did not inform her handmaid of her early departure from the engagement party, preferring to handle as many tasks as she could on her own. It was a small act of rebellion, but it was one she relished greatly as it helped to lessen her feeling of being powerless. She prepared for bed but was unable to sleep curtesy of her growing anxiety over her impending marriage to a cruel and likely homicidal man. So she grabbed a book and sat by the hearth basking in the flames she started by her own skill.

It was not long until she heaved a heavy sigh and slammed the book closed, unable to focus on the looping script. Her mind kept drifting to Sir D’Igren. At first she thought perhaps she was in love. Such a thought was quickly dismissed. Love at first sight or even first dance was nothing but the passing fancy of people with nothing better to do. She was intrigued, that much was certain, but beyond that she could not discern what it was exactly that drew her thoughts to the knight so thoroughly. In her heart resided the smallest flicker of hope that somehow Sir D’Igren would help her. With what she did not dare speculate, but the hope was there no matter how hard she tried to tramp it down.

Her spiraling thought were interrupted by a stone shaking roar unlike anything she had ever heard. She was not certain why but her gut told her the owner of such a roar meant her no harm. The same could not be said of the knights and royal guards that scrambled to don armor and retrieve weapons.

The princess let out a cry of alarm as the roof of her chambers was ripped clean off granting her a clear view of the creature responsible for such a feat. It was a massive beast, its head alone filling the space where her roof used to be. It had razor sharp teeth and its warm damp breath extinguished the hearth fire. Its face was covered in scales each the size of her open hand and colored so dark she thought them black until silvery moonlight caused the scales to produce a blue shimmer. The eye she could see gazed at her unblinking save for a second eyelid that closed vertically like the reptiles she had read about.

A distant part of her knew she should be scared. To a beast so large she was barely a morsel, but its eye eased her fears. It was the same unusual shade of violet as her dance partner’s. Its eye blinked and head dipped low in a bow. She could tell it was acknowledging her recognition.

Shouts could be heard approaching as warriors made their way up to her chambers. She spared a moment to suddenly be thankful for the many flights of stairs between her and the people that would see her remain in the castle against her will. As if in response to her thoughts a low pitched rumble she could feel deep in her chest came from the dragon, for that’s what the beast.

The princess started as a familiar velvety voice spoke, not with its mouth but with its mind. Suddenly the beautiful but strange word spoken amidst their dance made sense as the dragon communicated its desire to taker her away from the kingdom that thinks of others as little more than property.

She did not even need to think about it. Here was a soul that was kind and compassionate, but also bold and strong enough to right a wrong it saw. In front of her was a soul discontent to leave her to the fate she never asked for. Here was a soul that wanted to grant her the only wish she ever held in her heart.

To be _free._

She never thought of herself as a damsel in distress. In fact had she been able she would have rescued herself, but she knew when to accept help, pride be damned. So with a firm nod and a verbal agreement she gathered a small bag of the plainest clothing she had and a few jewel just in case coin was needed. When she turned back to the dragon it had shrunk down to a size that was ride-able, but still large enough to give even the bravest knight pause.

Heeding its instructions she settled between two spike ridges at the base of its neck careful to place thick fabrics between her legs and the scales that shifted with each twitch of the powerful muscles beneath her. Just before they could launch in to the air her door burst open, nearly flying off its hinges. Her fiancé and a handful of knights spilled into her room. Some trembled in fear, armor clanking together as they processed the incredible sight before them.

The beautiful princess sat strong and proud atop a creature none had ever thought they would see. Frightened whispers of “dragon” circulated among the men their gazes locked on their princess astride the beast of legend. Even Lord Nathair’s sword shook in his unsteady hands as he held it poised to lash out against the dragon attempting to take his only ticket to the throne.

“Release her lizard and I will grant you a swift death.” The lord’s voice boomed in the small space but the slight tremble brought a smirk the princess’s face. The clanking of armor grew with each newly revealed tooth as the dragon’s lips pulled back into a wide grin.

“What do you plan to do tiny human? Poke me with that trembling needle? Your knees betray your false bravado. Leave now and I will forget your transgressions this night.” The dragon spoke aloud its voice in this form had a growling sort of lilt that princess could find no way to accurately describe.

One knight, freshly knighted and barely old enough to be considered a man dropped his blade and pressed his back into the wall behind him as his fear got the better of him. The distinct smell of urine slowly permeated through the room shortly after. Lord Nathair in turn channeled his fear into a white hot fury causing his grip to steady as he stood face to face with the dragon. The difference in size remind the princess of an adult with a child’s doll.

“Do not presume to order me about lizard. I am Lord Guaren Nathair of Dynesh, heir to the largest merchant fleet and soon to be heir to the throne though marriage. None will stand between me and my birth right.” He readjusted his grip and stood proudly, as though titles and wealth were meant to subjugate a beast capable of destroying the entire castle with the barest of effort.

“If you think I care for the petty possessions of tiny humans like you then you are gravely mistaken. I care nothing for the machinations of creatures scrambling to gather a modicum of power. I can no longer sit idly by as humans with hearts as dark as night snuff out souls as beautiful as the morning sun. If you do not drop your blade now I will not hesitate to remove the hand that wields it” Lord Nathair’s face paled considerably and his griped loosened before the whimpering of the soiled knight reminded the lord that he had an audience. He tightened his grip once again, his knuckles turning white and shaking with the strain.

“Release my fiancé, _lizard,_ or things will get ugly for you.” His voice trembled but he held firm, much to the princess’s amazement and subsequent annoyance. He was braver than she had ever given him credit for. Or, more likely, he was desperate as the only thing tying him to the throne was sitting astride a towering, presumably fire breathing, dragon. Of her own volition no less. Thing were not looking good for the cruel man, and she would be lying of she said she took no joy in the sight.

“I grow tired of these games. I have offered you a curtesy for the princess’s sake only. If you insist on this foolishness then you leave me no choice. We are leaving and you will never walk the same again.” With that the dragon swept the lord and his knights off their feet with its tail before swiping at lord Nathair’s leg, the sharp talon tearing through his thigh like a heated knife through butter making the leg unusable no matter the level of treatment.

The princess quickly looked away unused to the sight of so much blood, but even a gruesome scene such as that could not dampen her excitement. The dragon instructed her to brace for the jump needed to launch themselves into the air. Its great wings beat once, twice, three times before its powerful legs propelled them up through the gaping hole that used to be her roof. They rose slowly but steadily until they were high enough in the air to sail over the remaining tower with plenty of room to spare. It soared across the land swifter than any horse. Where they were going the princess had not a clue, but for the first time in her life the princess felt something she never thought she would 

**_Freedom._ **


End file.
